Tebow to the Jaguars? Not so fast, my friend

The Jacksonville Jaguars are under pressure from their fans to draft Tim Tebow in the first round, right?

The hometown kid who won championships at the big university right down the road will fill seats and sell merchandise and lead the Jaguars to glory while preventing the team from leaving for Los Angeles — isn’t that how the story goes? The fans have even created a Web site — draft15.com, with 1,080 signatures so far.

But the Jaguars, who hold the 10th overall pick, have conducted some of their own research. And in a poll of 800 season ticket holders, 55 percent said the Jaguars should NOT draft Tebow.

General manager Gene Smith held a Fan Forum over the phone with the season ticket holders last night, and according to the Florida Times-Union, the first question of the night was about drafting Tebow.

“I’m not going to comment on where he’s going to be drafted,” Smith said.

Smith seemed to indicate he doesn’t expect to draft a quarterback with the 10th pick of the first round when he said it wouldn’t be easy for a rookie quarterback to come in and be better than David Garrard and backup Luke McCown.

Because teams don’t usually draft a quarterback in the first round to come in as No. 3 at the spot, Smith might figure a quarterback isn’t likely to be the Jaguars’ first-round choice.

As far as drafting a quarterback at some point, Smith said, “I would always look for a quarterback we could develop, but I’m not going to force it. Is it a position we’ll look at in the draft? Yes, it is.”

The chances of Tebow being drafted in the first round, though, appear to be dwindling, and if Tebow is not taken by Seattle at 14, he likely will go in the second or third round.

The Jaguars don’t have a second round pick, but they could conceivably take him with the 10th pick of the third round. Smith also says later in the T-U story that his mentality is to acquire draft picks, so it would not be surprising to see the Jaguars trade the 10th overall pick for multiple picks in the first three rounds and use one of those on Tebow.